


to the shoreline and beyond

by kalypsobean



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:46:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For chloe_amethyst as part of Sultry in September 2013<br/>Legolas feels unlooked for grief at the passing of Gandalf and spends his time in Lothlorien learning how to deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to the shoreline and beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chloe_amethyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chloe_amethyst/gifts).



_Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. ..._ Mithrandir, Mithrandir _sang the elves,_ O Pilgrim Grey! _For so they loved to call him. But if Legolas was with the Company, he would not interpret the songs for them, saying that he had not the skill, and that for him the grief was still too near, a matter for tears and not yet for song._  
\-- 'The Mirror of Galadriel' LotR Book Two, Chapter VII

 

Legolas shivers, though he clutches furs close to his shoulders and fears his fingers will break if he moves even slightly. He thanks the animals who gave them, in vain hope that the simple words he knows from childhood will calm him, let him breathe evenly and slip into a healing rest.

He can hear the Hobbits' tears from here, though they stayed on the ground and built something of a nest amid the roots of the mallorn he lies in. He can hear the songs of his brethren, distant in kin as if strangers; he hears the snores of the Men, a sound that only days ago had comforted him as he stood alone on watch. It would be easier, perhaps, if the Company was still in the wild; he would have a purpose then, a reason to be sleepless and alert, and there would be thoughts to occupy him beyond his own internal monologue of _why_ and _how_ and _what does this mean_ and _it should have been me i am expendable i could have done more_. Here, though, the borders are protected by hundreds more equipped than he is; he no longer even has the role of guard or standing as assurance for the Company now that they have been made welcome here. The trees speak their own language, as foreign to him as the inflections of his cousins' tongue, and they grieve too much to offer him comfort though their leaves rustle greetings to him as he rises and reaches out to them.

 

Almost without thought he drops the furs carelessly to the floor and leaps lightly up into the branches and higher, until he reaches the canopy and the stars are revealed to him, shadowed though they are by the darkness that emanates from his homeland and casts a pallor even over the spirit of fair Lothlórien. The air still chills him, perhaps more so, but it is clear and carries no burdens to lay on him; each breath fills him with ice and calm until it is as his whole body is as fragile as a spear not yet tempered, the fletch before it is part of the arrow. He wishes he could cry or scream or sing but instead it is as if there is a darkness, an abyss into which he is drawn and which holds him transfixed until there is no colour left, no light and no spark from which to draw.

This, then, he understands, is how it feels to fade; a depression that encompasses until there is naught but itself, it appears and gnaws until it takes what is freely given and takes it to the Halls over the Sea from whence it is unlikely to return.

He climbs down, seeking a warmth he cannot find even under furs and cloaks and in the light of fires from below.

 

Aragorn rises early, before the dawn takes over from the last of the embers, and comes to sit beside him, still not yet awake as is the fashion of Men. He does not speak, but for a moment it is as if they sit by a fire in the shadows of the Greenwood as they once did, when these cares had not yet settled on them and their paths were not yet laid in stone before their feet. 

"I don't know how to comfort you, Legolas," Aragorn says, after the silence seems to stretch the space between them such that even heat does not pass from Aragorn's hand to his. "I am familiar with death, and I know you have suffered much loss, but he was supposed to be more than us, and we trusted him through many nights thus far."

He says nothing; there is nothing to say for Aragorn can see what is left in his heart. For a moment he wishes Aragorn was his, that he had the right to lay his head down on Aragorn's shoulder and take comfort from him, but he denies himself even that much knowing Aragorn would give it freely and his own light would be dwarfed and swallowed, leaving nothing left for the quest ahead. It would be enough for the last few hours of night, but then there would be tomorrow, and the many days ahead, and there is no end to this; he knows it in the same way he understands that there is nobody for him in this land, not one who can draw him back and remain untouched by this stain on his soul, his wounded fëa.

 

Instead, he lets Aragorn take what comfort there is from him; he does not protest when Aragorn brings his cloak and fur and covers them both, and he lets Aragorn pull him down and lay him out as if for the unending sleep that threatens if he dares but close his eyes. Aragorn's hands wander when he lies down alongside, they do not touch him where he would most benefit, but they do not still until Aragorn's breathing evens and he is asleep again, the only trace of their exchange being that they now lie together. He covers Aragorn's hand on his waist with one of his own, feeling again how smooth his own skin is in contrast, despite being marked by bow and arrow and knife, how small he is and eerily translucent in a way that frightens him.

 

He wakes to find he has only slept an hour, if that; the dawn just creeps through the top of the trees and casts away more shadows with each passing second. Aragorn's embrace holds him in the new light like an anchor, like an unbreakable tether between him and light that dances on the tangles in his hair and the mithril pattern on his discarded quiver, around the aged and knowing lines of the mallorn's bark and Aragorn's eyes as they open.

"Do not abandon me just yet, mellon-nin," Aragorn says before leaving him alone with his thoughts, as if there were room for one or the other alone. But his skin feels warm and solid where Aragorn's hands had rested, and there is laughter sailing on the air like spray from a waterfall, light and difficult to see but its absence had been missed in the stillness of a drought.

He can do one more day, like this. Another passes before he knows it, and the trees laugh at him, a Wood-Elf lost among them and unwilling to find his way. Yet they listen to him with patience borne of their great age and do not laugh at his attempts to learn their language while they tell him of all they have seen before him, tales and songs come to him on the breeze and he learns them to sing of in his heart as he had sung to keep his spirits high before coming here to find the darkness not so easily banished. 

 

It is then, with the passing of time unmarked save by meals and the occasional and feared rest, that he finds something to hold his strength and take with him when he must inevitably leave; the trees tell him snatches of prophecy from before the Breaking of the World and the secrets buried deep within the earth, and he knows he will be needed, that without a doubt, this is not where the darkness takes him.  
Yet his time is coming, and all too soon; he will not see his homeland just yet, and spend no more summers running freely beneath shadowed branches and slaying foul creatures with emotionless precision. If he spends more time near Aragorn, and away from the darkness, then he knows the trees do not blame him for seeking warmth from the brightest of mortal souls under them.

 

 _Legolas Greenleaf long under the tree_  
In joy thou hast lived, Beware of the Sea!  
If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore  
Thy heart shall rest in the forest no more.  
\-- 'The White Rider' LotR Book Three, Chapter V


End file.
